Posted
by
CowboyNealon Saturday April 01, 2006 @12:51PM
from the right-price dept.

Micahel West writes "As reported on OpenOffice.org: 'For an undisclosed sum but reputed to be in the billions, Microsoft's Bill Gates has personally bought the leading open-source desktop project. Saying he "was sick and tired of open-source eating away at his profits," the world's richest man decided to put an end to the nuisance and simply buy OpenOffice.org. It will form part of a growing list of Microsoft acquisitions including several erstwhile competitors, a considerable number of prominent politicians, and a few small governments.'"

No it isn't believable. OpenOffice is GPL. It cannot be bought out because it's source is freely available, and because any modifications made are also GPL, so if the project theoretically could be bought, people could still have anything that came out of it free (both meanings).

Seriously, its about time, I mean, everyone knows that Microsoft is evil, at least now they have the balls to admit it. If we're lucky, during the next few days, Microsoft will buy out every major open-source project out there. And maybe buy out Apple as well. Then we won't have to worry about drivers and such not working on our machines, becuase there'll only be one machine! Great days are ahead, I can tell!

Wouldn't Bill Gates prefer to buy something that represented a product that was actually better than his? Has he ever USED OO.org? Try typing in special characters using the keypad some time. Will it shift the cursor back and print nothing? print the character and delete the one before it? Work as planned? Do nothing at all? Call the space-aliens and tell them earth is ripe for the plucking as everyone struggles to use the bloated file formats? It's a mystery!

He did several times. One example is Foxpro, which despite being purchased by M$ is still an excellent database, so therefore it's relegated to being hidden in the attic.

I could understand MS chucking Access into the dumpster when the bought Foxpro, but have to admit that I don't understand the current situation. I cannot see the sense into pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into a failed product like Access when has owned Foxpro since before Access became common.

Finally, maybe now those idiots at OpenOffice.org can finally get all of those MS files to work properly in their software. How many years have they been working on this and they still can't get it right. WTF have they been doing?

Hey guys, the whole idea of an April Fool's joke is that it's supposed to be believable. I would have bought the OpenSSH one if someone had posted a thoughtful article on a security page. Perhaps peppering enough clues to it's being a fake so that those "real" admins would know it was false because the exploit described was not plausible, while the "wannabies" spent their Saturday at work combing the net for the patch and filling up forums with "OMG, WTF?! I can't find a patch for my Ubuntu web server!"

An easy solution to the pink is to go grab the Slashdotter firefox extension [mozilla.org]. It allows you to change the scheme of every slashdot page. I never actually used that feature until they put up the pink theme and my eyes started to bleed. I'm using the Linux theme.

Just a note, there is still a little bit of pink left on the site since I guess the extension doesn't change everything.

Who would want something free when you can pay for it? I mean, how well can something free work when microsoft spends millions in research and development creating that fantastic suite known as Microsoft Office.

Finally, OpenOffice will get all the research it needs to be the best. Maybe Microsoft will smarten up and buy Linux next, I hate that crappy OS.

Any Program or OS that doesn't crash must be a rootkit, that's the only logical explanation!

This is the only thing that's really keeping me from switching over completely to openoffice. It's sort of annoying that my old legacy xls files and doc files get indexed by google desktop search, while everything new I create and everything I re-save in openoffice (ods/odt) format, doesn't get indexed. I really wish google would get with it and fix that. Like, today. OMG they don't even support an OPEN SOURCE format LOL!!!1

Disclaimer: This post is entirely serious and has nothing to do with invisib

Even with the pink pages all around the site, and the fact that I was actually looking for the traditional April Fools Day stories, I still found myself wide-eyed at the very thought of this being real, even if only for a split second.

Serious sites should play more jokes like this, but on other days of the year - that would really freak people out.

Keep laughing...just the other day I spoke with someone employed by a reasonbly-sized city, that, like many, are cash-strapped. Don't think they aren't looking for ways to reduce their costs. She seemed intrigued by the fact that you could download, install, and use an entire OS, not to mention software with a reasonably good feature set - for free.

This would have had more of a shock value if it wasn't so obviously wrong. Monkies flinging poo with robotic hands? Plausible. Openoffice.org being bought? You can't force a purchase of a non-public non-profit organization...duh. The possiblity of openoffice.org being bought is ground _very_ well trodden on slash.

I wish Microsoft COULD (and then WOULD) buy all rights to current OS projects or bribe enough people to get laws passed banning OS in its entirety.
No, I'm not kidding. This isn't an add-on to the April Fools joke.

Slashdot forges forward on April Fool's day with a slew of half-assed stories that seem completely implausible in an attempt to "fool" the masses. It seems apparent that they've misunderstood the point of the day, churning out endless crap rather that crafting a well thought out april fool's joke. The key to a solid April fools joke is creating something that people would actually swallow. Painting everything pink and going "ZOMG" doesn't quite fit in that. I'd challenge you next year to actually put some

I love Bill and everything Microsoft but I am not sure if I will be able to use this software until it retails for at least $599. AFWIW, I think I am having Bill's child, even though I am a man, and ever since cowboys have come out of the closet I am OK telling people...

In related nows, RMS announced that the new GPL3 (and LGPL3) would alow users to go closed source. Speaking from his new 40ft yacht (he still hasn't explained where it came from) near his new Martha's Vinyard mansion (ditto), he announced "Linux was having a hissy fit over DRM, so I decided 'oh, why bother?'."

Asked if this meant that he was abandoning the Free Software Crusade, RMS replied I still think that Open Source is a Good Idea(tm), I'm just tired of being the whipping boy of Linus and Perens and

wow.. i thought i was misreading my google personalized homepage when i saw that headline.. very stupid indeed, considering millions already have openoffice downloaded to their computer.. not to mention, tons of people that can manipulate and understand the code well enough to continue to make it better..

he might as well buy all of Earth while he's at it.. because there's always going to be something or someone that "cuts in to his profits" simply because they want the majority of people, especially poor